Ball sleeve joints are known, in principle, in the state of the art and are used in various embodiments in all industrial areas, especially also in the automotive industry. As a rule, they must transmit very high dynamic radial loads as well as static preloads within the framework of their use. There are, in principle, two different design variants especially for the embodiment of the housings of such ball sleeve joints. On the one hand, the housing may be manufactured from a one-part tube, preferably one made of steel, into which the other components of the ball sleeve joint are fitted within the framework of the manufacture. The manufacturing steps provide here for the introduction of a first closing ring into the housing, after which the assembly unit comprising the ball sleeve and the bearing shell is inserted into the housing and finally fixed in the housing by means of a second closing ring.
As other design variants, two-part joint housings are known, which are interlocked with one another in the mounted state by elastic tooth elements. Shells made of plastic, which have a row of slots, which make it possible to pull the bearing shell over the ball surface for mounting with the bearing surface of the ball sleeve located inside, are usually used as bearing shells in both variants. The POM plastic material, which is preferably used here, has the drawback that the plastic material begins to creep under increased load and migrates into the slots present in the bearing shell. Increased clearance, which leads to failure of the entire component within a short period of time, will develop in the ball sleeve joint as a result.
Moreover, it was found that the above-described ball sleeve joints have a very low stiffness in the axial longitudinal direction of the component, because the plastic can very easily yield in the axial longitudinal direction because of its creep properties and an axial clearance develops in this manner. This drawback is additionally supported by the fact that the joint closure must also be considered to be relatively elastic, especially in case of one-part ball sleeve joints, due to closing rings designed as sheet metal parts, and the ball shell, fixed by the closing rings, cannot be sufficiently supported in case of a correspondingly increased load.